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Nummer 4 / 2010

Francesca Rochberg (Berkeley) Babylonian Astral Science in the Hellenistic World: Reception and Transmission

Herausgegeben von Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Center for Advanced Studies®, Seestr. 13, 80802 München www.cas.lmu.de/publikationen/eseries Nummer 4 / 2010 Babylonian Astral Science in the Hellenistic World: Reception and Transmission

Francesca Rochberg (Berkeley)

In his astrological work the , the such as in ’s Geography, as well as in an astrono- describes the effects of geography on ethnic mical text from Oxyrhynchus in the second century of character, claiming, for example, that due to their specific our era roughly contemporary with Ptolemy [P.Oxy. geographical location „The ...Chaldeans and Orchinians 4139:8; see Jones 1999, I 97-99 and II 22-23]. This have familiarity with Leo and the , so that they are astronomical papyrus fragment refers to the Orchenoi, simpler, kindly, addicted to .” [Tetr. 2.3] or Urukeans, in direct connection with a lunar parameter Ptolemy was correct in putting the Chaldeans and identifiable as a Babylonian period for lunar anomaly Orchinians together geographically, as the Chaldeans, or preserved on tablets from . The Kaldayu, were once West Semitic tribal groups located Babylonian, or Chaldean, literati, including those from in the parts of southern and western known Uruk were rightly famed for and astrology, as Kaldu, and the Orchinians, or Urukayu, were the „addicted,” as Ptolemy put it, and eventually, in Greco- inhabitants of the southern Babylonian city of Uruk. He Roman works, the term Chaldean came to be interchan- was also correct in that he was transmitting a tradition geable with „astrologer.” from the Babylonians themselves, which, according to a Hellenistic Greek writers seeking to claim an authorita- Hellenistic tablet from Uruk [VAT 7847 obv. 11, Weidner tive source on astrology or other esoterica often cited 1967, 19; see Fig. 1], associated cities and lands with generic ancients, such as „Chaldeans,” or „Egyptians,” zodiacal signs, and, in particular, attached the sign Leo and Arnaldo Momigliano once said that, „the mass of to the land of Akkad, another term for the southern part writings claiming to be translations from Oriental lan- of . guages were mainly forgeries by writers in Greek. What circulated in Greek,” he continued, „under the names of Fig. 1: VAT 7847, an astrological tablet from Seleucid Zoroaster, Hystaspes, Thoth, and even Abraham was Uruk in the collections of the Staatliche Museen, quite simply faked, though no doubt some of the writ- Berlin. ings contained a modicum of „Oriental” thoughts com- bined with Greek ideas.” [Momigliano 1975, 17]. Within the mass of unreliable and sometimes wholly erroneous attributions to Eastern wise men, however, are legitimate Greek translations of Egyptian temple literature, and especially meaningful evidence ist traceable for the absorption of Babylonian astral scientific tradition in the West following the Macedonian conquest. Indeed, Babylonian sciences seem to be the only part of Mesopotamian scribal culture to have penetrated the Greek world, surviving into Late Antiquity despite the Ptolemy’s Orchinians, who were „addicted” along with end of cuneiform culture itself. the Chaldeans, also appear in other Greek accounts, The story of the Hellenistic transmission of Babylonian

1 CAS® e SERIES Francesca Rochberg (Berkeley): Babylonian Astral Science in the Hellenistic World Nummer 4 / 2010

astral sciences has two quite different accounts, the Still, there were scholars in the early 20th century, such Hellenistic Greco-Roman one, which tells in all its as Carl Bezold and Franz Boll, who explored then unreliability how Greek and Roman writers saw their recently edited cuneiform astrological texts for parallels astronomical and astrological heritage from the East, in Hellenistic Greek. David Pingree later expanded the and a modern revision, based on cuneiform texts. The investigation of the transmission of ancient Near modern account itself has two distinct aspects, or perhaps Eastern astral sciences to include astrological and phases. In the first phase, the recovery and exposition literature not only in Greek and , but in Aramaic, of the cuneiform astronomical and astrological texts Hebrew, Syriac, , Persian, Demotic, and Sanskrit allowed modern scholars to gauge ancient Greek and as well. [Pingree 1998, 125-137] Despite these efforts, Roman claims about the Chaldeans against original and those of, for example, the scholars associated with sources for the first time. Most dramatic was the discovery the Warburg Institute, to promote the study of astrology of certain numerical parameters already known from as an important dimension of art and science in the West, much later Greek astronomy. F.X. Kugler first established the interdependent nature of these disciplines in the the ultimate Babylonian origins, for example, of the cuneiform material was not emphasized until relatively parameter for the mean synodic [29;31,50,8,20d] in recently. This latter phase in the modern account of the Ptolemy’s . Later, this parameter was identified legacy of ancient Mesopotamian science to the Greek in Copernicus’ De revolutionibus, and Otto Neugebauer and Greco-Roman worlds is based upon an expanded showed the use of this same value in European calen- conception of science in antiquity, one that no longer dars deep into the Renaissance, as attested in the 15th sees science in decontextualized bodies of knowledge century Book of of the Duke of Berry [Neugebauer or as a process of the discovery of the truths of nature, 1989, 402]. but rather in the cultural practice of inquiry and as an Perhaps the most widely known result of Assyriological engagement of specific historical communities with the scholarship in the early part of the 20th century was that physical world as they saw it. This conception draws the ancient Mesopotamia came to be known as the cradle of distinction between astronomy and astrology in a different (Western) civilization, the site of the origins of urbanism, way from that which sees the former as science and the literacy, and statecraft. Somewhat less well publicized latter as non-science, focusing instead, for example, on was the realization that Babylonia was the site of the nature of their predictive goals as a criterion of dif- the foundation and origin of Western astronomy. This ference. realization was based on the discovery both of a long The basis of the Babylonian astral science tradition that tradition of empirical celestial observation in the city of later came to be of significance for Greek scientific wri- from roughly the eighth to the first centuries ters of the can be said to begin with B.C.E., and the development of a fully theorized and the Assyro-Babylonian scribes of the 7th century B.C.E. predictive mathematical astronomy, emerging in and their later counterparts, scribal professionals of the roughly the 6th century and continuing through the late Babylonian temples of Babylon and Uruk. These Hellenistic period. Despite holding such a position at the scribal professionals concerned themselves to a great Creation (of the West), in its extent with detailed lists of signs with their correlated early reception into the was viewed events of public or private nature. The body of celestial as a kind of scientific miracle within an otherwise non- signs corresponded by and large, but not exclusively, to scientific primitive system consisting of visible phenomena in the heavens, i.e., of the , and astrology. This narrative was based on the tendency sun, , and . Both groups styled themselves to unify when it comes to science (i.e., it is about nature keepers of this tradition of astral science, which.in not culture), and to leave other aspects of intellectual extant texts dealing with lunar and solar culture from the Cradle to take up a more „indigenous” is traceable to the late second millennium. The scribes, character. however, imagined the celestial divination tradition to

2 CAS® e SERIES Francesca Rochberg (Berkeley): Babylonian Astral Science in the Hellenistic World Nummer 4 / 2010

have come up through the ages, from the god of wisdom and the celestial phenomena commanded the attention Ea himself and the antediluvian sages, who passed the of the poets, who from the time of Hesiod had sung of tradition of celestial and other divination along to future the celestial signs and of the revolving year.” [Evans generations of scribes. Within this ancient scholarly and Berggren 2006, 92 -100 and 227-230] More community, and over many centuries, arose such deve- recently, Reviel Netz, with respect to such works as lopments as predictive astronomy and genethlialogy, or ’ Hermes and ’ poetic version of birth astrology, but always in dynamic relation to the Eudoxus’ Phaenomena, has commented on „the special existing tradition of celestial omens known as Enuma- role for the skies” in Hellenistic science, that „these . Even the Hellenistic Babylonian scribes who after all serve, at the same time, as depository for produced astronomical texts viewed themselves and mythical references, and as literal, scientific objects.” their work as part of this divinatory textual tradition, as [Netz, 2009, 181] shown in this colophon from an for lunar The phenomena had similar multivalence in Babylonian , written in 191 B.C.E. science, that is, they were objects of empirical investi- gation and mathematical analysis and they were signs, On eclipses of the moon. objects of interpretation that came of a belief in a mode Tablet of Anu-bel-sunu,- ˇ lamentation priest of Anu, son of Nidintu-Anu, of communication with the divine through such signs. descendant of Sin-leqi-unninni- of Uruk. Hand of Anu-[aba-utêr, his In both cases celestial phenomena were scientific son, scri]be of Enuma- Anu Enlil of Uruk. Uruk, month I, year 12[1?] objects. Antiochus III (The Great) [and Antiochus, his son, were kings]. During the Neo-Assyrian period (7th century B.C.E.), Whoever reveres Anu and Antu [will not remove it (the tablet) in an celestial divination was a scholarly profession of great act of thievery.] distinction, the ranks of the diviner scholars being filled Computational table. Wisdom of the highest order (lit: of Anu-rank), to a considerable extent by members of elite literate exclusive knowledge conc[erning heaven and earth], a secret of the families, such as that of the venerable Nabu-zuqup- scribal masters. An expert may show (it) to an[other expert]. kena who worked in the court of Sargon II at Nimrud. In A non-expert may not [see it. It is a restriction] of the service of the royal courts of Esarhaddon and Anu, Enlil [and Ea, the great gods]. [Hunger, 1968, No. 98] Assurbanipal such scholars that had attained mastery of the repertoire of celestial omens interpreted ominous On the basis of this and other evidence to be suggested astronomical phenomena for the benefit of those kings. here, I want to stress that in ancient Mesopotamia as Most of the omens from Enuma Anu Enlil portend well as in the Hellenistic West, though in different ways, events of consequence, usually catastrophic, for the astronomy was part of a broad intellectual culture in king, his country, its economy, and its enemies. For which celestial divination, astrology, and even astral example: theology (for lack of a better term) not only coexisted but were interlocked. The importance of celestial phe- If an eclipse occurs on the 14th day of Abu, and it begins in the south nomena in Near Eastern and Greco-Roman antiquity and and clears in the east; it begins in the evening watch, variant, in the the centrality of the astral sciences to the development morning watch, and ends and clears up. You observe his (the of what we now call „scientific inquiry” is a matter of moongod’s) eclipse and bear in mind the south(wind). The decision much more than the computation of planetary or lunar (of the gods) is given for the king of Eshnunna: There will be an appearances alone. As James Evans and Len Berggren uprising of the Ummanmanda, variant, my army. Battle will rage. One said in the preface to their edition of the Hellenistic tre- man will kill another man in battle. [EAE 21 § V.1, Rochberg, 1988, atise on astronomy, the Introduction to the Phenomena 239] of , astronomy had „vital links to nearly every other aspect of the culture,” that it „had links to ancient Enuma Anu Enlil comprised an extensive repertory, religion, for the planets were widely held to be divine, numbering 70 tablets and many thousands of omens.

3 CAS® e SERIES Francesca Rochberg (Berkeley): Babylonian Astral Science in the Hellenistic World Nummer 4 / 2010

The use of this repertory is well-attested in a corre- the Elder Pliny [HN 6.123; 7.193], who claims to have spondence between the scholars and the Neo-Assyrian seen them in Babylon in the „Temple of -Bel”- monarchs, complete with urgings by the scribes for the and how the city had crumbled in ruins around it. Much kings „not to worry” because the required rituals later, Pausanias in the 2nd century of our era echoes the against bad portents would be performed. report on the existence of the temple of Bel- in the midst Sometime in the fifth century, after the Persian con- of a deserted city. quest, the priestly literati came to be supported within the institutions of the major temples rather than at Fig. 2: Table of new and full for S.E. 263/49-48 court. There a new sort of heavenly prognostication, not B.C.E. and designated „tersetu- of Naburimannu”, for kings but for individuals, was developed in the form published in O. Neugebauer, Astronomical of genethlialogy, or birth astrology, producing horosco- Cuneiform Texts (1955), No. 18. pes in which the situation of the heavens at the moment of birth would be read more or less as an omen. For example:

Year 92 [(S.E.) [=220 B.C.E.], Antiochus (III) was king. Tasrituˇ - 30, night of the 1[2th(?), first part of night, the moon was] below „the rear of the head of the Hired Man [= α Arietis]. The moon passed 1/2 cubit to the east [of α Arietis]. [...] the child was born, in [his] , [the moon was in Aries(?),] the sun was in Scorpius, Jupiter [was in Aries],Venus and (were) i[n Sagittarius], and [which had set were not visible.].” And so on. Very occasionally, omen style predictions will be included in these horoscopes, such as „The place of Mercury: The brave one will be first in rank, he will be more important than his brothers; he will take over his father’s Before Alexander entered Babylon, there is little con- house.” [Rochberg, 1998, No. 10 r. 1-3] vincing evidence to point to for Greek awareness of Babylonian astral science. After that date, however, In order to give the positions of all the planets, that is Hellenistic Greek writers gave explicit priority in the the five naked eye planets plus the sun and moon, astronomical sciences to both Babylonia and Egypt in a genethlialogical astrology, unlike celestial divination, vague sort of way. said the Egyptians and was dependent upon predictive astronomical methods Babylonians „made observations from a very great and it is in the period in which horoscopic astrology of years” and had provided „many reliable appears that a number of such methods were developed. for belief about each of the planets.” [Caelo 291b34 – According to dated tablets from 308 B.C.E. to 43 C.E., 292a9] In his Bibliotheca Historica [Bk 2. 31.9] tabulated dates and positions of lunar and planetary Diodorus of Sicily in the 1st century B.C.E. assigned a phenomena, such as lists of new and full moons, solar value to this „great number of years,” saying „as to the and lunar eclipses, and planetary appearances, are number of years which, according to their statements, extant from the Hellenistic cities of Babylon and Uruk. the order of the Chaldeans has spent on the study of the The latest of these tables is datable to the year 43 of the bodies of the , a man can scarcely believe them; Common Era, but other non-tabular, so-called non- for they reckon that, down to Alexander’s crossing over mathematical astronomical texts were also produced into Asia, it has been four hundred and seventy-three into the first century of our era, the latest dated text thousand years since they began in early times to make being from 75 C.E. Eyewitness testimony to the existence their observations of the stars.” Roughly a century later, of the Babylonian at this time comes from Pliny, in his Natural History, invoked Epigenes as an

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authority on the antiquity of Babylonian astronomical against each other, and inflicted a heavy defeat on the troops of the observations, saying they went back 720,000 years. king (Darius); the king’s troops deserted him and fled to their cities [NH. 7. 193] He (Pliny) also claimed that Critodemus, a [... to the l]and of the Gutians. name associated with Greek horoscopes of the 1st and 2nd centuries of our era, had direct access to Babylonian The astronomical diaries are a remarkable source of sources. In Book 7 of the Natural History he mistakenly contemporary dated astronomical observations of the placed him in the 3rd century B.C.E. on the assumption moon and planets with respect to so and so many cubits that he was a student of , the supposed distance from a series of ecliptical reference stars, such Babylonian priest and author of the History of as in the statement that the moon was 6 cubits below ε Babylonia in Greek for Antiochus I. Pliny’s claim was Leonis in the example just quoted. One can hardly that Critodemus agreed with Berossus that Babylonian blame the for their astonishment and awe at the astronomical observations went back 490,000 years. It duration of the Babylonian tradition of celestial obser- is not the inaccuracy or the exaggerated nature of the vation. Extant diaries do span nearly 800 years and figures that needs comment. It is that the Greeks found were no doubt the source of some of the observations the idea of keeping many centuries of records of celestial utilized by Ptolemy in the Almagest. Those of Mercury observations to be new and important. As is clear from in Almagest IX 7, for example, are dated „according to the dearth of dated observations of astronomical pheno- the Chaldeans,” i.e., in the , a Babylonian mena in Greek texts before the 2nd century B.C.E., Greek astronomical dating convention, and they too make use astronomy prior to contact with Babylonian science was of the cubit as well as the ecliptical norming stars not equipped with an empirical foundation of dated known in accordance with the practice of the diaries. lunar and planetary observations. The material if however Of the more specific references to Chaldeans are those obliquely referred to in these Greek attributions to the mentioned by Strabo, who flourished from the mid-first Babylonians was no doubt the archive of nightly lunar century B.C.E. to some time in the first century C.E. In and planetary positions compiled in Babylon from 746 his Geography several Babylonian astronomers [mathe- B.C.E. until the mid-first century B.C.E. which we now matikoi] are mentioned by name: , Kidenas and called the astronomical diaries. The following is from a Naburianus. For the authenticity of Sudines, alleged to diary dated in the year 331 B.C.E., the year Alexander have been in the court of King (Attalos Soter) the Great defeated Darius III and entered Babylon: of , no cuneiform evidence is extant. Evidence that a Sudines wrote on the properties of sto-

Night of the 20th, last part of the night, the moon was [nn cubi]ts nes comes from Pliny’s Natural History, where he below The Rear Twin Star (β Geminorum), the moon being 2/3 cubit claims that this Sudines knew of the provenance of back to the west. The 21st, equinox; I did not watch. Ni[ght of the onyx, rock-crystal and amber and commented on the 22nd, last part of the night,] [the moon was] 6 cubits [below] The color of pearls and „astroite” or the „star stone.” Head of the Lion (ε Leonis), the moon having passed 1/2 cubit behind Further mention of Sudines is found in the Natural Regulus (α Leonis). Night of the 24th, clouds were in the sky. [Sachs- History as a „Chaldean astrologer.” Consistent with this rd Hunger1988, Vol.I , 177, No.-330] designation is a late papyrus fragment (3 century C.E.), purportedly summarizing a commentary on the The same diary goes on to report Darius III’s defeat at Timaeus by the Stoic (2nd or 1st century Gaugamela as follows: B.C.E.). Here the influences of the five planets, sun and moon are enumerated in terms of Aristotelian qualities

That month (Month VI), on the 11th, panic occurred in the camp (warm, moist, dry) and further indications are given for before the king [...the Hanaeans (meaning here Macedonians)] the planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus as the encamped opposite the king. On the 24th, in the morning, the king of „destroyers” of men and women, young and old. The the world (that is, Alexander) [erected his] standard [....] they fought Venus as the destroyer of women is given

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„according to Sudines.” Ca. 160 C.E., the astrologer and by the first century of our era were in use, as Vettius Valens lists parameters for the length of the year Alexander Jones [1997 and 1999] has shown, in the according to Greek and Babylonian astronomy. There Greek papyri from Oxyrhynchus in Roman Egypt. Greek Sudines is associated with a somewhat arbitrary sound- knowledge of the methods and concepts inherent in the ing year length of 365 + 1/4 + 1/3 + 1/5 days. Valens Babylonian astronomical tables is also attested in chap- adds that he used Sudines (and Kidenas and ter 18 of Geminus’ Introduction to the Phenomena, Apollonius) to compute lunar eclipses and that he where he discusses lunisolar period relations. This work normed the equinoxes and at 8o of their signs. can be dated to the first century B.C.E., contemporary, Aries 8o is in fact a legitimate Babylonian norming point therefore, with some of our extant cuneiform ephemeri- for the vernal equinox in a in which degrees are des. In chapter 18.9 Geminus gives the precise value of counted within sidereally fixed zodiacal signs begin- the mean [daily] motion of the Moon „found by the ning with Aries (or „The Hired Man” in the Babylonian Chaldeans” (13;10,35o). And although he does not iden- zodiac). The norm 8o Aries as the vernal point underlies tify the other lunar parameters mentioned in this chap- many Hellenistic astrological texts and continued in use ter as such, they too are parameters of a typically throughout late antiquity. Babylonian zigzag function for the progress of the The name Kidin(nu) appears in the colophons of two moon in degrees per day (=column F of System B lunar cuneiform ephemeris tables, where they are designated theory in O.Neugebauer’s terminology). In this same as „tersetu-- of Kidin(nu),” tersetu being the term for the chapter Geminus discusses a lunar cycle used in the cuneiform tables of dates and positions of the moon and prediction of eclipses called the exeligmos, or „revolu- planets. Each of these computed tables mentioning tion.” The period governs the return of the occurrence concerns new and full moons, in one case for of eclipses to a particular time. Geminus’ value for the the years 104-102 B.C.E. Valens said he used period [669 synodic = 717 anomalistic months = „ for the sun, Sudines and Kidinnu and 19,756 days] is consistent with Babylonian period rela- Apollonius for the moon,” though he makes no specifi- tions and his entire discussion of the exeligmos is in cations about the methods associated with these line with Babylonian . names. Kidenas is also mentioned by Pliny when he As we know from ’ Anaphorikos, the treatise gives values for the maximum elongations of the inner on the rising times of the zodiacal signs, Geminus’ planets from the sun. He says his authorities for these Introduction, Ptolemy’s Almagest, and the Oxyrhynchus values are Timaeus for Venus (46o) and Kidenas and papyri, details of Babylonian units, parameters, and Sosigenes for Mercury (22o), but what such attributions methods appear in Greek astronomical works by the really mean is impossible to determine. second century B.C.E. and continue until late antiquity. The third Babylonian named by Strabo, Naburianus, The Babylonian cubit (KÙS=ˇ ammatu) continued to be has been interpreted as the Greek version of the used for measuring distances in the heavens between, Babylonian name Nabû-rimannu that appears in broken e.g., and the meridian, or between planets context in the colophon of an astronomical tablet from and nearby ecliptical stars, and its subdivision the fin- Babylon. The colophon designates this tablet too as a ger or digit (SU.SI=ˇ ubanu- ), was used in measuring tersetu- or „computed table,” and like the tables of eclipse magnitudes. Another fundamental reference Kidinnu contains dates and positions of new and full tool of Greek astronomy adopted from Babylonia was moons, though later in date, for the years 49-48 B.C.E., the zodiac, which today we associate exclusively with putting it among the youngest of extant cuneiform lunar astrology (see Fig. 3). The ancient zodiac, however, ephemerides (see Fig. 2). began as a mathematical standard for calculating posi- The specific contents and methods of calculation of tions of celestial bodies. The treatises of Autolycus and these Babylonian astronomical tables were also known (ca. 300 B.C.E.) already assume the zodiac, and a to Greek astronomers by at least the first century B.C.E. reference in Pliny’s Natural History claims that a certain

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„Cleostratus” was responsible for introducing the con- Fig. 5: Illumination of the melothesia (zodiacal cept to the Greeks around 500 B.C.E. Firm evidence, man) from the Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry however, of a 360o zodiac in Greece comes only in the (1413-1416). 2nd century with Hypsicles and Hipparchus, that is to say, after contact with Babylonian mathematical astronomy.

Fig. 3: Zodiac of 12 30- signs through which sun appears to travel in 1 year.

Fig. 4: Astrological aspect: Trine aspect between two planets which are 120 degrees apart.

The rich and detailed nature of the transmission of Babylonian astral sciences to the Greeks must, however, be seen against some fundamental differences between Just as the history of Western astronomy is traceable in the Babylonian and the Greek world systems. For exam- cuneiform astronomical texts, the seeds of Western ple, the horoscopus, or rising point of the at the astrology are also clearly identifiable in the cuneiform moment of birth, as it is known from Greek and later celestial omens and horoscopes, beginning with the European horoscopy was not a feature of cuneiform very idea of prognostication by heavenly phenomena „horoscopes.” Nor was the conceptual basis for the and including more concrete borrowings such as plane- horoscopus, i.e., the sphere and the continuously tary aspect (especially the trine aspect that relates three moving great of the ecliptic, at home in planetary bodies found in zodiacal signs 120o apart; see Babylonian astronomy. The physical theory by which Fig. 4). The dodekatemoria or the 1/12ths of zodiacal Ptolemy [Tetr. I.2 and 24] explained stellar influence in signs, the hypsomata or exaltations of the planets terms of planetary rays, or the power of the aether that where they have their greatest astrological influence, is „dispersed through and permeates the whole region and the association of planets and parts of the body in about the earth” is equally absent from Mesopotamia. the style of the melothesia (see Fig. 5) are other clear Physical influence from the stars may be implied in the borrowings from the cuneiform tradition. Babylonian magical corpus when potions and medica- ments must be left out overnight before use, but stellar irradiation of substances does not find its way into cele-

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stial divination, nor is it the same as the Greek physical the divine, despite the obvious fact that heavenly phe- theory of astrological influence for the principal nomena could be observed, analyzed, and predicted that the physical substance of the aether is absent from qua phenomena. But Greek and Roman attitudes, despi- Babylonian . Indeed, celestial divination in te Protagoras and Lucretius, and despite a different sort ancient Mesopotamia seems to have functioned without of engagement with the notion of nature as well as the benefit of a physical theory, its causality being tied to notion of the divine, did not challenge the existence of the agency and manifestation of divine will, and not the gods (or the divine) while engaging in scientific inquiry. action of celestial matter upon the mundane. By the 2nd And seemingly contradictory ideas about the relation of century, the elements of Babylonian astral sciences of the heavens to the divine obtained even within a given interest to the Greeks, that is, the Babylonian quantitative system. For example, regarding the Mesopotamian methods and astronomical concepts as well as various , the idea of the world presupposed a notion of astrological traditions, including omens, horoscopes, the divine, but seemed to permit such contradictions as astral magic and zodialogical medicine, were all inte- divinities removed from the physical world in a kind of grated within various world systems fundamentally dif- transcendent relation to the visible or material plane ferent in conception from that which we can roughly and/or as active forces within visible physical phenomena reconstruct for the Babylonians themselves. in a relation more akin to immanence. The evidence for a fundamental difference between The ambiguity inherent in the Mesopotamian sources Mesopotamia and Greece in their respective concep- may well be reflected in the account of Chaldean tions about how astrology works, and also how astronomi- astrology by Diodorus, who in the first century B.C.E. cal theory fits into a physical world picture, suggests wrote about the „Chaldeans” in his universal history that the ancient history of the astral sciences is as much [Bk. 2.30-31]. Diodorus did not report wholly accurately about culture as it is about nature. A more general such on what he called „Barbarian” history and culture, but claim was already long ago made by Thomas Kuhn each of the two possible relations between god and [Kuhn 2002, 218-219] in the context of an argument heavenly body are reported in this work. He says that against the notion of the uniformity of nature. In one of the Chaldeans considered the planets instrumental in the earliest challenges to scientific universality, Kuhn predicting the future. He says the planets, whom he did not see that natural phenomena were „the same for refers to as „Interpreters”, „by virtue of following each its all cultures” and remained unconvinced by the argument own course, point out future events, thus interpreting to that because nature stands apart from human culture, mankind the design of the gods. For sometimes by their existing independently from our actions and our know- risings, sometimes by their settings, and again by their ing, that its phenomena are necessarily or categorically colour, the Chaldeans say, they give signs of coming unaffected by culture. He suggested that not only are events to such as are willing to observe them closely.” concepts („of the natural or social world”) „the posses- By this account, the gods are separate from heavenly sion of communities (cultures or subcultures),” but bodies, which appear by divine design as signs of future social concepts as well as concepts of the natural world events. On the other hand, however, Diodorus describes „shape the world to which they are applied.” By way of the thirty stars (or „decans,” an Egyptian doctrine example, he remarked that „the heavens of the Greeks erroneously attributed to the Babylonian astrological were irreducibly different from ours.” And so were they system) „as ‘counselling gods’,” and that „twelve of irreducibly different from those of the Babylonians. One these gods, they say, hold chief authority, and to each of cannot generalize about „physical reality” within remote these the Chaldeans assign a month and one of the historical frameworks, or view historical developments signs of the zodiac, as they are called.” Here Diodorus’ against a universal background of nature. attribution of the divine „decans” to the Babylonians As far as a Babylonian conception of nature is concerned, evokes correctly the Babylonian idea that celestial physical phenomena did not occupy a realm apart from phenomena made manifest the attributes and the agency

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of certain remote while also being considered of the heavenly bodies was thought to confer the virtues sometimes to be deities themselves. of piety and happiness is much later explained by These kinds of metaphysical considerations, about the Ptolemy [Alm. 1.1] in the introductory section of his heavenly phenomena and the divine, are as important treatise on mathematical astronomy. There he placed a part of science in the Hellenistic period as are the the celestial bodies with the eternal and unchanging, computed tables of the moon and planets. The trans- hence divine, part of the universe, and claimed that mission and reception of Babylonian astral scientific „from the constancy, order, symmetry and calm which tradition in the Greek world is not, to my mind, a are associated with the divine, it [that is, astronomy] question of whether Hipparchus went to Babylon and makes its followers lovers of this divine beauty, accusto- learned mathematical astronomy (though connections ming them and reforming their natures, as it were, to a between Babylonian astronomers and Hipparchus similar spiritual state.” might be traced in cuneiform texts, according to D. In the Christian context the cosmos was regarded as Rawlins 1985, cf. Toomer 1988), but of a multifaceted proof of the existence of the divine creator, though the cultural matrix which allowed for the various parts notion of the divine cosmos, and certainly the veneration of these interrelated sciences to be understood and of the stars or the cosmos itself, was explicitly con- significant in the West. Babylonian ideas of an astro- demned. But behind this condemnation lies a Hellenistic theological nature were fully part of this integrated tradition, from which Babylonian influence cannot be scientific culture and we see a widespread general asso- removed, that is, of the personification of the heavenly ciation of heaven with the divine across the ancient bodies as deities with powers of thought, feeling, Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultural arena during judgment, and knowledge. In conscious opposition to this period, no doubt accounting for the receptivity of what he says of „Chaldean opinion,” meaning the opinion Greek intellectuals to similar Near Eastern ideas. Book of astrologers, Philo [Migr. Abr. 32,182] stated that God 10 of ’s Laws already expressed the belief that „cannot be contained,” that is, by „this visible universe, heavenly bodies are propelled by a soul whose nature is ” and he enjoined humanity to „come down therefore wise, true and good and that this is the divine in nature from heaven” because knowledge of the divine is not to which affects all things, including humankind. Aristotle be sought in „every detail respecting the movements [Met. 12, 8.19], also interested in the idea of the divinity of the sun, and of the circuits of the moon, and of the of the heavens, remarked that „there is a very ancient glorious rhythmical dances of the other ,” tradition in the form of a myth, that the stars are gods but in our own mind (that is „nous”). This is not to imply and that the divine embraces the whole of nature.” We that Philo himself, or the other Middle Platonists of the do not know, of course, whether Aristotle was referring turn of the Common Era, knew anything of the to ancient Babylonia, but the connection between the Babylonian astral scientific tradition directly, much less heavens and the divine goes back to the very begin- of its technical astronomy. But as members of the literate nings of cuneiform texts, where cult offerings found in Alexandrian culture they were no doubt aware of its Level IV of Uruk, that is, where writing was first found, existence. Even had Babylonian astronomy not still are made to Venus as both Inana-húd (UD) „Inana of the been current in the first century of our era, Hellenistic morning,” that is the morning star, and Inana-sig astral sciences and were already indelibly „Inana of the evening,” or the evening star. marked by Babylonian ideas and methods. The divine nature of heaven came to be a basic under- The question of Babylonian influence has always been standing in the Greco-Roman world. Cicero [Nat. D. approached via specific references to the Chaldeans 2.61.153] said that „contemplating the heavenly bodies found in Greco-Roman authors. As already mentioned, the mind arrives at a knowledge of the gods,” and that such references are available from most of the from this knowledge, „arises piety, with its comrades Hellenistic period, that is, from the first century B.C.E. justice and the rest of the virtues.” Why the contemplation to the 3rd century of our era. There are too many to make

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mention of here. One finds Chaldeans in Vitruvius (1st tative astronomy came as part of a complex set of ideas, century B.C.E.) in connection with Berossus, in Theon including the divine nature of the heavenly bodies or of Smyrna (1st-2nd century C.E.) in connection with the idea that a reciprocity between heaven and earth „saving the phenomena,” or Sextus Empiricus (2nd or 3rd manifested in celestial signs. From a cultural point of century C.E.) in connection with astrology. Some of view, Babylonian astral sciences and their surrounding these Chaldeans, as said before, are simply astrologers, ideas and world system, including Babylonian mathe- and may not have much to do with specific Babylonian matical astronomy, astrology and astral theological tradition. Not generally mentioned, however, is the thought, came to be of acute interest within a Hellenistic interest in signs. Already Aratus in his poetic Hellenistic intellectual and religious culture with its , as Netz points out, „sets up the poem own multiplicity of ideas about the cosmos, especially from its very beginning, in the most general terms of the heavenly regions, its luminaries, and their relation signs,” with Zeus being the one who established to the divine. In this cultural climate the astral sciences these heavenly signs. Even more so is the focus on of ancient Mespotamia not only penetrated the linguistic signs evident among the Stoics, whose theory of signs and cultural boundaries of Hellenism, but found fertile in the context of conditional statements about future grounds for their acceptance. events is discussed at length by Cicero in his treatise De Fato [1.1]. A two thousand year long tradition of such conditional statements about future events in the form Bibliography of Babylonian omen texts stands in the background of this treatise and was well-known to him, according to a I Evans, James and Berggren, J. Lennart, statement in his De Divinatione [1.1, cf. 19]. Because of Geminos's Introduction to the Phenomena his engagement with other thinkers, especially Stoics (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University such as Diogenes of Babylon and , whose Press, 2006). works are not otherwise preserved, Cicero’s treatises on divination bear greater attention for the purpose of I Jones, Alexander, „A Greek Papyrus Containing understanding the impact of this Babylonian preoccu- Babylonian Lunar Theory”, in: Zeitschrift für pation upon Greco-Roman . Papyrologie und Epigraphik 119 (1997), Indeed, the Hellenistic discourse on divination, the 167-172. Greco-Roman portion, was contemporary with the late, i.e., 3rd century and later, continuation of Babylonian I Jones, Alexander, Astronomical Papyri from divination, especially astrology. And it is well to remem- Oxyrhynchus, Memoirs of the American ber, as Netz said, that „Hellenistic philosophy of science Philosophical Society 233 (Philadelphia: was organized around the problem of ‘inference from American Philosophical Society, 1999). signs’.” [Netz, 2009, 186] To conclude, the transmission of Babylonian astro- I Kuhn, Thomas S., The Road Since Structure: nomical quantitative methods and parameters were Philosophical Essays, 1970-1993, edited by instrumental and formative for Western astronomy and James Conant and John Haugeland (Chicago: astrology, and the modern recovery of this material was University of Chicago Press, 2002). instrumental if not revolutionary for the history of the ancient astral sciences. But the story of the transmission I Momigliano, Arnaldo, „The Fault of the Greeks,” and reception of Babylonian astral science in the in: Wisdom, Revelation and Doubt: Perspectives Hellenistic world is not limited to the imprint of astro- in the first Millennium B.C.,” Daedalus 104 nomical concepts and methods on later astronomy. (1975), 9-19. Seen in a broader context, the transmission of quanti-

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I Netz, Reviel, Ludic Proof: and the Alexandrian Aesthetic (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

I Neugebauer, Otto, „From Assyriology to Renaissance Art,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 133, No. 3 (Sep., 1989), 391-403.

I Rawlins, Dennis, „Ancient Geodesy: Achievement and Corruption“, in: Vistas in Astronomy 28 (1985), 255-268.

I Rochberg, Francesca, Babylonian Horoscopes (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1998).

I Sachs, Abraham J., and Hunger, Hermann, Astronomical diaries and related texts from Babylonia, Volume I: Diaries from 652. BC to 262 BC. Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Denkschriften der philosophisch-historischen Klasse, 195 (Vienna, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1988).

I Toomer, Gerald J., „Hipparchus and Babylonian Astronomy,” in: Erle Leichty, Maria de J. Ellis, Pamel Gerardi, eds., A Scientific Humanist: Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs, Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, 9 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1988), 353-362.

I Weidner, Ernst, Gestirn-Darstellungen auf babylonischen Tontafeln, SOAW, vol. 254 (Wien; Graz, Wien, Köln: Böhlau, in Kommission, 1967)

For further reading, see Francesca Rochberg, In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its Legacy, Studies in Ancient Magic and Divination 6 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010).

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